Solo Mission First Time With Seeds

[PpmOver9000]

What's up farm! I'm fairly new here in these streets and have bounced around the forums a good bit. Some great people and growers on here, thank you all who have answered my questions!

I have moderate experience being part of a large team 3 years ago, and this is my first attempt at a home set up alone. Would greatly appreciate some sage advice.

These are about 2.5 weeks since germination and the edges of the leaves seem to be yellow and burned in some cases while the middle of the leaf is dark green. Some of the root tips on most of them are brown and died off.

I dunno if maybe I started feeding nutrients too early or if I over saturated the cubes but they stopped growing.

They been getting fed a small amount like 2-3 mL with a pipette once every 24 hours.
5.7 ph
0.5 ec
Starting from RO and using vegbloom line. I use their stackswell(calmag) and bring up to 0.2ec and get to 0.5ec with the vegbloom.
Took some cube samples with a little syringe. It came out: 7.0 ph, 0.3 ec (from what I understand, they're eating)

The room is at 72F and 60RH

The roots for the most part look good but the growth between days is almost unnoticeable. I have never popped seeds and I treated them like clones for the first 10 or so days with a dome. I took the dome off 2 days ago but kept everything else the same. Dont wanna change too much too drastically. Any thoughts?

 

[BurnzYzBudZz]

Looking good. Are you staying in cubes? Or transitioning to soil/ coco? I think they are ready to be fed a bit at 2.5 weeks. No need for domes with seedlings in my experience. What’s your plans from here??

 

[PpmOver9000]

Looking good. Are you staying in cubes? Or transitioning to soil/ coco? I think they are ready to be fed a bit at 2.5 weeks. No need for domes with seedlings in my experience. What’s your plans from here??

Yes staying in cubes, will be transplanted to 6in cubes and set up on a top feed DTW system. I've been bouncing around a lot of threads and pretty much copied the system that @cemchris ,@Dirtbag , and @Aqua Man were so kind to showcase on here .

Ya they are being fed but I am not sure what is up with the color of the leaves, something seems wrong. And they seem to have stopped growing. Are you suggesting I feed stronger than 0.5EC?

 

[BurnzYzBudZz]

Yes staying in cubes, will be transplanted to 6in cubes and set up on a top feed DTW system. I've been bouncing around a lot of threads and pretty much copied the system that @cemchris ,@Dirtbag , and @Aqua Man were so kind to showcase on here .

Ya they are being fed but I am not sure what is up with the color of the leaves, something seems wrong. And they seem to have stopped growing. Are you suggesting I feed stronger than 0.5EC?

Slowly bump it up. The small leafs on the bottom(don’t remember what they’re called) are dying and turning yellow on your seedlings. To me, that indicates that you need to up your feedings. I’m no hydro grower, but I grow in coco which is similar. I was feeding almost full strength at 2.5 weeks my last grow, but all nutrient regiments differ.

 

[Aqua Man]

Back the light off quick... they may or may not stunt but they are light stressed and starting to bleach.

Download light meter by my mobile tools dev and I would reduce it to around 7500 lux for about a week.

 

[PpmOver9000]

Back the light off quick... they may or may not stunt but they are light stressed and starting to bleach.

Download light meter by my mobile tools dev and I would reduce it to around 7500 lux for about a week.

Ah that was one of my guesses! Thank you

 

[PpmOver9000]

Slowly bump it up. The small leafs on the bottom(don’t remember what they’re called) are dying and turning yellow on your seedlings. To me, that indicates that you need to up your feedings. I’m no hydro grower, but I grow in coco which is similar. I was feeding almost full strength at 2.5 weeks my last grow, but all nutrient regiments differ.

Great okay, Ya I wasn't sure if I was under or overfeeding. Thanks for the input mah dudes!

 

[Dirtbag]

Theyre looking a little oxygen starved too. Rockwool does better with a bit more dryback. It can stay oversaturated when the plants are young.
And 7ph in the block is no bueno, they should be 5.5-6ph in the block. Over 6.5 is bad.

I would raise the lights like Aqua said, push temp up close to 78-82F and get the humidity around 60%, +/-5%, and give them a dunk into nutrient solution ph'd to 5.5 and 0.7ec, then let them dry up for 3 or 4 days before feeding again. Are you using tap or RO water before adding nutes?

 

[Aqua Man]

Theyre looking a little oxygen starved too. Rockwool does better with a bit more dryback. It can stay oversaturated when the plants are young.
And 7ph in the block is no bueno, they should be 5.5-6ph in the block. Over 6.5 is bad.

I would raise the lights like Aqua said, push temp up close to 78-82F and get the humidity around 60%, +/-5%, and give them a dunk into nutrient solution ph'd to 5.5 and 0.7ec, then let them dry up for 3 or 4 days before feeding again. Are you using tap or RO water before adding nutes?

100%

 

[PpmOver9000]

Theyre looking a little oxygen starved too. Rockwool does better with a bit more dryback. It can stay oversaturated when the plants are young.
And 7ph in the block is no bueno, they should be 5.5-6ph in the block. Over 6.5 is bad.

I would raise the lights like Aqua said, push temp up close to 78-82F and get the humidity around 60%, +/-5%, and give them a dunk into nutrient solution ph'd to 5.5 and 0.7ec, then let them dry up for 3 or 4 days before feeding again. Are you using tap or RO water before adding nutes?

Awesome thank you for this! I am using RO before adding nutes. I'll get started on this right now. If you don't mind sharing what is the logic behind the temp raise and the higher EC? (Just tryna learn as much as I can while I have your attention haha) The 5.5 ph makes sense.

@Aqua Man I just raised the light with the app you suggested to 7500 lux, literally almost tripled the distance it was at from before lol... what is a good typical lux reading for healthy seedlings?

 

[Aqua Man]

Awesome thank you for this! I am using RO before adding nutes. I'll get started on this right now. If you don't mind sharing what is the logic behind the temp raise and the higher EC? The 5.5 ph makes sense.

@Aqua Man I just raised the light with the app you suggested to 7500 lux, literally almost tripled the distance it was at from before lol... what is a good typical lux reading for healthy seedlings?

Seedling/rooted clones 5000-10000lux. (Your are stressed so 7500for a week and see how they go.

Un rooted clones under 5000 lux.

Veg 18/6 15000-45000 lux

Flower 12/12 40000-65000 lux

Always start at the low end and slowly increase. 3-5k every few days to a week. You will find the plants almost grow into the increases and moving the light is far a few between.

 

[PpmOver9000]

Seedling/rooted clones 5000-10000lux. (Your are stressed so 7500for a week and see how they go.

Un rooted clones under 5000 lux.

Veg 18/6 15000-45000 lux

Flower 12/12 40000-65000 lux

Always start at the low end and slowly increase. 3-5k every few days to a week. You will find the plants almost grow into the increases and moving the light is far a few between.

I do own a par meter, should I be finding a balance between both lux and par readings? Because the reason these babies are light burned is because I was solely using my par meter which was putting lux way out the ranges you suggest.

 

[Aqua Man]

I do own a par meter, should I be finding a balance between both lux and par readings? Because the reason these babies are light burned is because I was solely using my par meter which was putting lux way out the ranges you suggest.

What par is it at now?

Is it a true par meter? Or app?

 

[PpmOver9000]

What par is it at now?

Is it a true par meter? Or app?

Par after I raised the t5 fixture is now sitting around 110-120 PAR, before I had it at 250 or so.
Yea it's a true par meter.

 

[Aqua Man]

Par after I raised the t5 fixture is now sitting around 110-120 PAR, before I had it at 250 or so.
Yea it's a true par meter.

Yup thats about right. See how they go. If you get the other stuff that @Dirtbag listed fixed up then in a week or 2 they should be fine at 250 par if they don't stunt.

But make sure and get those others fixed also... especially that ph in the block

 

[PpmOver9000]

Just dunked them into 5.5ph/0.7ec using a half full clone tray of the nutrient mix. Lights raised and controllers set to 78F/60RH. Now I wait..will update here in a few days if that's ok. Thank you all for the tips!

 

[Aqua Man]

Just dunked them into 5.5ph/0.7ec using a half full clone tray of the nutrient mix. Lights raised and controllers set to 78F/60RH. Now I wait..will update here in a few days if that's ok. Thank you all for the tips!

 

[Dirtbag]

Awesome thank you for this! I am using RO before adding nutes. I'll get started on this right now. If you don't mind sharing what is the logic behind the temp raise and the higher EC? (Just tryna learn as much as I can while I have your attention haha) The 5.5 ph makes sense.

@Aqua Man I just raised the light with the app you suggested to 7500 lux, literally almost tripled the distance it was at from before lol... what is a good typical lux reading for healthy seedlings?

Raising the temp should drive the transpiration rate up, causing the plants to draw in more nutrients, especially Calcium. And it will help the block dry up which pulls oxygen into the root system.

I asked about the water as your seedlings are looking like they arent getting enough Calcium for some reason, could be low transpiration or just not enough in the nutrient solution. What nutes are you using?

 

[PpmOver9000]

Raising the temp should drive the transpiration rate up, causing the plants to draw in more nutrients, especially Calcium. And it will help the block dry up which pulls oxygen into the root system.

I asked about the water as your seedlings are looking like they arent getting enough Calcium for some reason, could be low transpiration or just not enough in the nutrient solution. What nutes are you using?

The Hydroponic Research Vegbloom is what I am using. I used their Life+ (a tiny pinch in a gallon of water), stackswell up to 0.2EC (their calmag), then vegbloom for the rest of the way. Do the order of these or amounts look off?

Also to anyone reading, I find the search function on here a bit tough and don't know the members well enough yet. Just to be able to start less threads, I would love to have anyone shoutout the "rockwool" or "experience in rockwool" growers on here so I can just search up their content. (Or just solid follows in general) So far i've discovered yourself, aqua and cemchris.

 

[Dirtbag]

The Hydroponic Research Vegbloom is what I am using. I used their Life+ (a tiny pinch in a gallon of water), stackswell up to 0.2EC (their calmag), then vegbloom for the rest of the way. Do the order of these or amounts look off?

Also to anyone reading, I find the search function on here a bit tough and don't know the members well enough yet. Just to be able to start less threads, I would love to have anyone shoutout the "rockwool" or "experience in rockwool" growers on here so I can just search up their content. So far i've discovered yourself, aqua and cemchris.

Not familiar with the nutrients but if youre using Ca the solution should be ok. Its proba ly from them being a bit light stressed and not transpiring properly. I think youll see improvement in the next week.

And yeah cemchris is the man wrt rockwool. I only used it once but i really liked it, i had excellent results with it.